Florida Department of Education K-12 Scholarship Programs

Florida provides a variety of school choice options, including six scholarship programs. These programs allow parents unprecedented choice among public and private schools.

Family Empowerment Scholarship: This branch of the scholarship eligibility provides additional educational options for all K-12 students, such as attending a participating private school.

Family Empowerment Scholarship for Students with Unique Abilities: This branch of the Family Empowerment Scholarship Program is designed to offer families of students with disabilities, as young as 3 years of age, access to additional education options. Families may choose to enroll their student in another public school, or they may choose to take the opportunity to receive a personal education savings account (ESA) for their student.

Florida Tax Credit Scholarship: To expand educational opportunities for children of families that have limited financial resources and to enable children in this state to achieve a greater level of excellence in their education, the Florida Legislature created the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program in 2001. The law provides for state tax credits for contributions to nonprofit scholarship funding organizations, (SFOs). The SFOs then award scholarships to eligible children.

Opportunity Scholarship: The Opportunity Scholarship Program is a school choice program created by the Florida Legislature in the 1999 Legislative Session as part of the A+ Education Plan. The program offers students who attended or who were assigned to attend failing public schools the option to choose a higher performing public school.